Hadley's Blessing

Last weekend was Hadley's baby blessing. It was absolutely amazing, made even more great by all the family that came from out of town. We were originally going to have the blessing in Utah, but we were just down there for Grandma Allen's funeral and we thought it might be hard on Hadley to travel again so soon. Laurie and Justin and their family and my brother Scott and his oldest daughter Athena all came from Utah and it was fantastic having them here. Most of Levi's immediate family was there too and it was great to share this special day with them.
Hadley looked amazing in her little gown and she was an angel throughout the whole thing. Justin performed the blessing and, amongst other things, blessed her that she would always be a friend to those needing a friend, that she would be a quick learner, and that she would be a sweet, calm presence in our house.
After the blessing we had a picnic in a park and enjoyed the nice weather.
It was such a neat day and you could feel Hadley's sweet spirit and feel all the love in that room for her. I hope I can always remember what was said and tell her about it when she's older. She is so amazing and I can't believe how blessed we are to have her.
Thanks again to everyone who made the journey, it was incredible.

July 8, 2011

I absolutely love this video I caught of Hadley talking to her little toys on her mat. This is seriously how she laughs and it cracks me up!

Slow down!

Life has been happening a little too quickly for my liking. There are some days that I couldn't even tell you what I did that day because it went by so fast. Lately I've really been struggling with the idea that if I need to get ten things done in a week, I'll usually end up completing two of them. This is happening both at work and at home. At work I make post-it notes of things that I need to get done and I get satisfaction when I get to cross them off, but lately the act of crossing off the tasks has been getting farther and farther apart. At home, I'll set a simple goal like "Sort Hadley's clothes and box up the clothes that are too small." and I'll be lucky if that goal is reached in ten days time.
The work thing is understandable because we're running a huge ship on very little manpower, so it's inevitable that my projects will take longer to do, but I still hate that I can't get anything done at home. Does that ever go away? Will I just get used to it? Advice?
Anyway, enough about that: Laurie & Justin and the kids are coming up this weekend!! I'm so excited! We're having Hadley's baby blessing in our home on Saturday and Laurie's family is able to come up for it! We were going to do it in Utah next weekend, but with Grandma's funeral we just couldn't quite afford to drive back down so soon. I tried on Hadley's blessing gown yesterday and it's so beautiful. I even found little cream colored shoes to match. She'll look like a princess!
This is also the week of events that gets crazier every year: July 4th is not only one of my favorite holidays, but my stepmom-in-law's birthday, July 8th is my wedding anniversary as well as my sister-in-law's birthday and then my birthday is on July 10th. Our wedding anniversary was supposed to be July 21st, but the venue we booked ended up having a remodel booked that weekend so we had to bump it to the 8th, which has always seemed so weird and has never quite felt like my anniversary. Oh well, at least Levi usually gets to combine birthday/anniversary gifts for me :)
I'm so excited for Redfish lake, which is now less than a month away! This year my mom won't be going since she'll be going to NYC the following week, so we're taking Levi's sister Sevy with us. I think it's going to be a blast and I can't wait to lay on that sandy beach again!
Well, I'm off to try to get at least one thing on my list checked off. It probably won't happen, but I'm going to give it a whirl!

Babies!

Cutest babies ever! Starting with Hadley in the orange and going clockwise: Babies Solveig, Lily, Ayla, and Anna.

When Hadley was about two weeks old, I got a flyer from St. Luke's hospital offering a few new baby classes, as well as a new moms group. I thought the group could be fun and I decided to go to the next week's group. I knew when I went that first time that I had found a special thing. I was in a room, surrounded by other bleary-eyed women and their darling newborns. Over the weeks the nurse running the group covered everything from baby eyesight to baby massage and even baby dental hygiene (for when she's older, of course.) While these lessons were great, I really enjoyed talking with the other moms, several of whom have babies the exact age of Hadley. As the weeks have passed, Hadley and the others have become the big babies and crops of newborns and their moms have popped up, making me realize how fast time flies! The moms of the March babies (there are six or seven of us, I think) decided to form a Facebook group and from there we could plan future meet-ups. I had tried joining a Boise Mothers online group, but found that about 70 of the 76 members were stay-at-home mothers and therefore could meet anytime, which isn't realistic for me, not to mention I like talking to other working mothers and probably would have found myself a little depressed hanging out with women who get to be home with their babies all day.
The Boise Mamas, as my new group is called, consists of the sweetest women you've ever met, who happen to all work, and having that in common has been awesome.
Because we all work, meeting up proved a little tricky but we found a date that worked for most of us and met last Sunday to go for a walk on the greenbelt. It was fun seeing all the stollers and the adorable babies, all of whom are girls!
I hope to continue the meet-ups, it's been so nice to have conversations with these new moms and share stories of success as well as our failures :) I love seeing how the other babies are progressing and hearing tips from these great women. I hope our children can grow up as friends and we can continue to use each other as a great resource.

A day at Zoo Boise!

Zoo Boise is smack dab in the middle of downtown and, as such, is a small zoo when compared to other big city zoos. But what it lacks in size (as well as animals; it seriously has a squirrel exhibit) it makes up for in heart. It is beautifully landscaped, affordable and a great way to spend a couple of hours. Levi's sister Sevy got a volunteer job there and works Saturday mornings. Today she worked with the butterfly exhibit, which is actually pretty cool!
Hadley has decided that she is too busy for naps and takes about five 10-minute naps throughout the day. I snapped a picture of her at the zoo while she was resting, as I knew it might be the only time today that she shut her eyes.

I'm not sure if this no-nap thing is temporary, but she's at least not too grumpy and she also sleeps very well at night. Oh well!

The giraffe exhibit. You can see these guys looking over their fence when you ride your bike on the greenbelt in the park behind the zoo.

Levi and the baby. Levi decided that dressing in zoo keeper brown was the way to go for our trip. *love him!

Grandma Allen's Funeral

My beautiful Grandma, Marilyn Murphy Allen. 1924-2011.

Grandma as a baby. All Murphy/Allen babies are adorable!
My sweet Grandma Allen passed away last week. For anyone who knew her, she was the absolute sweetest grandma a person could have. She was funny, kind, generous, and made each of her 48 grandchildren and (now) 100 great-grandchildren feel like they were special and loved.
Hadley was the 98th great-grandchild and I'm so sad Grandma and her didn't get to meet, although I got to see Grandma a few times during my pregnancy. My Grandpa is very sad without her, but I know he knows he will see her again and they will continue their journey, which is already 68 years in progress.
The trip to Utah was a blast and we had so much fun seeing family we hadn't seen in a long time. There is nothing like a big, Mormon get-together and if it had been three days long it still would not have been enough time to get caught up with everyone. All but a handful of the grandkids were able to make it to the funeral, and that is a testament to my Grandma's love.

Our family is just 1/11 of the brood my grandparents created!

The Bicentenial Babies. My sister Laurie and four other girl cousins were born in 1976. How gorgeous are they??

All the oldest boy grandchildren were pallbearers. It was a very cool sight.

During our trip, we got to do all the fun things that we normally do when we visit Utah: eat lots of yummy food (Brick Oven, of course!), Ikea, and lots of cuddles with my nieces and nephews (okay, mostly the nieces since Ryan and Wilson are getting too big to cuddle.)
It was fun to see boatloads of babies while we were there. Since having Hadley, I realize how few babies are in Boise compared to Utah. When we went to Brick Oven there were about ten booths in our section and nearly all of them were filled with young families. I had to get a picture of Hadley's car seat with all the other car seats in the background. You just wouldn't see this in Boise:

Another thing that Boise doesn't have is a great soda selection. We went down to my bro-in-law Justin's store in Springville and I had a hard time deciding which soda to get!!

Hadley had a wonderful time meeting her Utah cousins and I think she suffered from cuddling-withdrawl when we came home. I can't wait to go back down in July! (I posted more about Hadley's trip on her blog hadleyscorner.blogspot.com)

All in all, it was a great trip, I just miss my Grandma so much. Even though she was suffering at the end, I selfishly wanted to always have her around because she always made you feel like the most important person in the world. We love you Grandma, and we know this is not farewell forever, but a temporary parting.

June 25, 2011

BIG GIRL!!

On June 19th, Hadley turned three months old! We were in Utah for Grandma Allen's funeral, so I snapped her picture when we returned. I got the onesie sticker idea from one of the moms in my new mom's group and I love it! It will be fun to take her picture each month in a white onesie and watch her grow. Here are some three month factoids:

• Hadley has become more expressive this month than ever before. She loves watching people's faces and will lift her eyebrows if you lift yours. She has even found her laugh, which is hilarious to hear and makes my heart burst with love.
• She coos and babbles and will sing back at you if you sing to her. She loves when I sing "The Wheels on the Bus" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." Bonus points if I dance around and look stupid, she thinks it's funny.
• She has temporarily (hopefully) stopped sleeping during the daytime and then sleeping for a solid seven to eight hours at night, before waking up to eat. While I love the sleep, it's a little weird to have her be awake all day. She'll take a light nap if I drive her somewhere, or walk her in the jogger, but the minute we stop she's wide awake again. I hope she starts taking daytime naps again, if only to not get yelled at a bear cub posing as a baby from 6:00pm-8:00pm.
• She still loves her bath and now recognizes when it's bath time (the sound of the running water, the feel of the rug beneath her when I'm getting her undressed, etc.) She starts kicking her legs in excitement when she knows she's about to go into the nice, warm water.
• She's about to go up another size in diapers, from size 1 to size 2. It's weird that I'm already looking at the newborn and size 1 diapers and thinking how small they look. I remember when she was born how big all the other diapers looked. Speaking of diapers. There is absolutely nothing cuter than when Hadley gets out of the tub and her hair is wet and curly and she's just wearing a new diaper. So sweet!

Here's to my baby Hadley at three months. I can't wait to see what this next month brings!

June 24, 2011

This last weekend we sadly lost our sweet Grandma Allen. The funeral was scheduled for June 20th, which gave us enough time to plan a trip down to Utah. We were worried Hadley would have a hard time being in the car for so long, but, as usual, she was an angel. She slept almost then entire drive down and back and never fussed.
My brother Scott's girls were so excited to meet their newest cousin and Laurie's kids were jumping out of their skin to play with her and hold her again. Hadley put on her brave face as she was passed again and again between little hands and I know that she could fill the love they were all directing her way. It was quite a sight!
Grandma Allen's funeral was absolutely beautiful. The blanket she was in the middle of knitting for Hadley when she passed away was on display at the church. My grandma has knitted a blanket for nearly every baby born into the family, and Hadley was great-grandchild 98. It was both heartbreaking and inspiring to see that red blanket, with the knitting needles still in place. She had told me many times she was determined to finish it for me, and I reminded her that I'd be happy with a tiny knitted square, if that's all she was able to do. Luckily for Hadley, she was able to get quite a bit done and it will be neat to tell Hadley the story of her Great Grandma Allen working so hard to finish her blanket for her.
The trip, which turned into a nice little vacation, included some firsts for Hadley:
1. First time meeting several of her cousins.
2. First trip to Brookside.
3. First trip to Brick Oven.
4. First trip to Ikea.
5. First time meeting both of her great-grandpas.
It was so great exposing her to these traditions, even though I know she won't remember them. We were able to stay in Utah for four days and were very sad to leave. We can't wait to go back down in July and I know Hadley will love seeing all of her smiling cousins again!

The Hubby and Hadley

Levi has been the absolute best new dad. He's so excited to tackle everything, including dirty diapers (ok, maybe "excited" isn't the word, but "willing" would explain it.)
I knew I lucked out when I married Levi and I always knew he would make a wonderful dad, I just didn't know how natural he'd be. I love you hun!

June 12, 2011

We have reached a milestone! Hadley has officially been sleeping through the night. Not just four or five hours at a stretch, but seven and eight hours! It has been amazing, although I hesitate to celebrate as she'll be moving to her crib soon and I suspect we'll have some long nights ahead of us then.
This last week (Tuesday, June 7, 2011 to be exact) Hadley started smiling regularly at all of us. She loves making eye contact and will burst out in a big grin if you make goofy enough faces. The more stupid I make my face, the more Hadley smiles!

Now that it's warming up, we've been able to take Hadley on more hikes and longer walks and she has been loving it. Today Levi and I took Hadley hiking at Camel's Back in her jogger. We joined our friends Laci and Jason, who have an adorable boy named Axel who was born one week after Hadley. They were in our birthing class and Laci and I have had some great times hiking and talking about our babies. Hopefully Axel and Hadley will be playmates in the future. I need to get some pictures of them together. So cute!

Hadley out for a hike. Tres chic sunglasses!

June 2, 2011

Hadley is growing like a weed (a very cute weed, of course!)
Here are two of my most favorite things that don't fit Hadley anymore. Let the tears start rolling.

Her sparkly shoes! We got these as a gift from my visiting teacher and I could not be more in love with them. They made every outfit Hadders wore even cuter. I will definitely miss them!

Hadley's duck outfit is finally too small. We were given this outfit as a gift from one of my coworkers and I have loved seeing her little legs in these pants. Goodbye duck pants :( (I'm hanging onto all these items, just in case we are able to have another sweet little girl in the future.)
As sad as it is watching her grow out of these little things, it's so much fun watching her get bigger and watching her become more aware of the things around her. She can lock eyes with you and win a staring contest any day of the week. Hadley can be all business with me (no smiles) and the minute I put a stuffed animal in front of her, or she looks up at her swing's fish mobile she'll break out in a huge smile and let out a loud, "Goo". Precious!
She loves her bathtub time and loves the tubby towel we were given as a shower gift. It keeps her from getting cold and she loves when I wet it with warm water every minute or so.

Don't let her serious face fool you, she loves her tub time!
Finally, Hadley and I are super anxious for summer. It seems like it will never warm up in Boise, even last year was warm by now. We are in desperate need of some Vitamin D!

Doughnut Dreams

Boise has a serious shortage of good doughnut shops. This is a serious problem and it needs fixing. It is Levi's and my dream to change that and open up an amazing local doughnut shop. One place that has inspired us is Top Pot Doughnuts in Seattle. Not only are their doughnuts one of a kind, but their building is amazing. The front is swanky and artsy...

...and the back shows the old history of the building:

Yesterday I was out walking with Hadley in her Baby Bjorn and was able to snap some pictures of the building I'd love to turn into Boise Doughnut Company (or Boise Doughnut Factory...which name do you like best?)

The building has such amazing bones, it's the old Idaho Linen Supply. A fantastic location and great history, just needs a little bit of a facelift :)

Here's a shot of the interior. Just needs a new coat of paint, right?,

Even though the building looks rough, the businesses right across the street have had a total facelift and are so fantastic.

What do you think? Do you think Levi and I could make our doughnut dream fly? All we need is to win the lottery or have a Daddy Warbucks-type person enter our lives....Any takers?